Self-dressing effect using a fixed abrasive platen for single-sided lapping of sapphire substrate

Single-sided lapping is crucial in sapphire wafering processes for improving flatness and achieving the target wafer thickness using loose abrasives. In single-sided lapping process, the Material removal rate (MRR) is a key factor for reducing process time and cost. However, the MRR is limited when using loose abrasives because abrasives mostly act by rolling and sliding. Many researchers have studied fixed abrasives to increase the MRR, but the MRR decreases with time. To solve this problem, the self-dressing effect was studied with various pressures, velocities, cutting fluids and wafers. The MRR decreased due to the wear of abrasives, and the pressure and velocity have little effect on the self-dressing. Lapping experiments were done using cutting fluid with a lapped wafer and sawed wafer. The MRR, plate roughness and thickness were measured to study the wear of the abrasive and the self-dressing effect. The cutting fluid delayed the wear of the abrasives and thus improved the decrease in MRR, but it had little effect on the self-dressing effect, like in the case when water was used. When using cutting fluid and a sawed wafer, the MRR was high and did not decrease. A concentrated load on the plate caused by shape error and saw marks on the sawed wafer could produce the self-dressing effect. We verified that a sawed wafer could produce the self-dressing effect on even a worn plate.     

Microstructure and high temperature properties of the dissimilar weld between ferritic stainless steel and carbon steel

Dissimilar joints between STS441, a ferritic stainless steel, and SS400, a carbon steel, were welded by GMAW (Gas Metal Arc Welding) using STS430LNb as a welding wire. The fracture behavior of the dissimilar weld was analyzed by a microstructural observation and thermo-mechanical tests. Martensite was formed at the region between SS400 and the weld metal because the Cr and Nb content in this region decreased due to the dilution of SS400 carbon steel during welding. According to results from a high temperature tensile test with a specimen aged at 900 °C, it was found that the tensile strength of the dissimilar weld at high temperature was equal to that of STS441 base metal and the formation of martensite had little influence on tensile strength of the dissimilar weld at high temperature. However, in the case of thermal fatigue resistance, the dissimilar weld had an inferior thermal fatigue life to STS441 because of the presence of martensite and the softened region around the interface between the dissimilar weld metal and SS400.     

Small punch tests on steels for steam power plant(I)

Conventional test methods for measuring fracture toughness require the removal of large material samples from in-service component. However, recent developments of small punch test technique using miniature specimens have proved its usefulness and accuracy to evaluate the mechanical properties of components. Correlations have been obtained between mechanical characteristics determined from small punch test and uniaxial tensile test. Furthermore, the study showed that an appropriate empirical based-approach could be used to evaluate the Charpy-FATT of as-received and ex-service materials from small punch test.     

Fabrication and electrostatic actuation of thin diaphragms

In this paper, two kinds ofp ⁺ diaphragms are fabricated. One is flat, and the other is corrugated to release the residual stress resulted from the diffusion process. The two diaphragms are electrostatically actuated, and the center deflections of the diaphragms are measured for various frequencies. The static deflections of the flat diaphragm and the corrugated one estimated from the test results are compared with the calculated static deflections under residual tensile stress. The experimental result and the calculated result agree in the case of the flat diaphragm with a reasonable residual stress, but it is not true for the corrugated diaphragm. In the calculation, it is estimated that the corrugated diaphragm deflects more than the flat one. In the experiment, however, the corrugated diaphragm deflects less than the flat one.     

Tool path generation for machining free-form pockets using Voronoi diagrams

Voronoi diagrams for closed shapes have many practical applications, ranging from numerical control machining to mesh generation. Curve offsetting based on Voronoi diagrams avoids the topological problems encountered in the traditional offsetting algorithms. In this paper, we propose a procedure using Voronoi diagram-based tool-path generation for machining pockets with free-form boundaries. A pocket can be bounded by 2D free-form curve elements that are differentiable twice. The procedure consists of three steps:

Experimental study on the characteristics of longitudinal fin air-heating vaporizers in different seasons

Air-heating vaporizers are usually used to regasify LNG at satellite areas because of the small demand for natural gas there. The common type of air heating vaporizer which exists in the market is the longitudinally finned type with 8 fins, 50mm fin length and 2mm fin thickness. To contribute in developing an efficient air-heating vaporizer, experiment on finned type air-heating vaporizer using 8 fins, 50mm fin length with 2mm fin thickness (8fin50le)-which exist in the market-and 4 fins, 75mm fin length with 2mm fin thickness (4fin75le), which is proposed, were conducted. Then, both types of vaporizers are compared. The experiments were conducted in one hour by varying the ambient condition and the length of the vaporizer. The ambient air was controlled so that it has the same condition (same temperature, humidity and air velocity) with air condition in every season available and the length was varied 4000mm, 6000mm and 8000mm for each type of vaporizer. Additional experiment with longer duration, i.e., 4 hours and in a single room condition was conducted to validate the previous result. In this experiment, the main aspects in analyzing the characteristics of the air heating vaporizer are the inlet-outlet enthalpy difference and the outlet temperature of the working fluid. LN₂ is used to substitute LNG for safety reasons. The results show that the characteristics of the finned type 4fin75le vaporizer are comparable to the finned type 8fin50le vaporizer.     

Development of a motion simulator for testing a mobile surveillance robot

A 6-axis motion simulator has been developed, in order to regenerate UGV (unmanned ground vehicle) motion and to test the stabilization system of the mobile surveillance robot that is mounted on the UGV. For developing the 6-axis motion simulator, a simulation-based design procedure was introduced. The 3D geometric model of the motion simulator was created by using 3D CAD modeler ProE. The multibody dynamics model of the motion simulator has also been created by using the general purpose dynamic analysis program ADAMS to validate the design of the motion simulator. Dynamics and control co-simulation model for the motion simulator has been also established for control performance analyses. Actual hardware of the motion simulator has been fabricated based on the proposed simulation based design. Hardware test of the motion simulator has been tried to validate the design. This paper was presented at the 4th Asian Conference on Multibody Dynamics(ACMD2008), Jeju, Korea, August 20–23, 2008. Oskar Wallrapp was awarded a Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering at the Technical University of Berlin, Germany in 1989. Dr. Wallrapp is currently a Professor in the Department of Precision and Micro Engineering, Muenchen University of Applied Science, Munich, Germany. His research interests are mechanism analysis and design, robotics, and bio-mechanics. Sung-Soo Kim received a Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Iowa in 1988. Dr. Kim is currently a Professor in the Department of Mechatronics Engineering at Chungnam National University in Daejeon, Korea. His research interests are real-time multibody formulation and its application to the automotive systems and military robot systems.     

Calculating the effective material constant for multigrain orthotropic polysilicon by the boundary element method

The reliability and safety of MEMS parts are important factors in industrial MEMS applications. Most MEMS parts are made from multigrain polysilicon, an orthotropic material with random material direction. Analyzing the stress and displacement and knowing the effective material constant are important when using MEMS in industrial applications. We developed a computer program to calculate the effective material constant of polysilicon using the boundary element method with the microstructure evolution method. The results obtained using the boundary element method were compared to those obtained using the finite element method to confirm the validity of the program.     

Application of hot press forming process to manufacture an automotive part and its finite element analysis considering phase transformation plasticity

An automotive flex plate that is installed in the automotive engine and delivers a torque to a transmission is manufactured by hot press forming technique. By this technique, significant increase of strength through quenching of heated high carbon SK5 steel sheet and higher dimensional stability after forming through the press operation at high temperature can be attainable. The indirect method with a pre-forming step and direct oil quenching to attain uniform and fast cooling rate are employed considering cooling characteristics of the SK5 steel and large thickness of the flex plate. A new tool design is proposed for the hot press forming process, and an optimized heat treatment condition is determined by studying two frequently utilized heat treatments: austempering and quenching with tempering heat treatments. By introducing designed tools and selected heat treatment condition, the target product can be successfully manufactured, which satisfies two main manufacturer's specifications: high hardness and good dimensional accuracy. Moreover, finite element analysis, which considers transformation induced plasticity (TRIP) during phase transformations, is performed to understand the thermo-mechanical behavior of hot press formed sheet. The analysis verifies that phase transformations play significant roles in strengthening by transforming hard martensitic phase and in reducing dimensional change by additional plastic deformation during phase transformations.     

Design optimization of extruded preform for hydroforming processes based on ideal forming design theory

The conventional practice to predict preform shapes in hydroformimg processes based on finite-element analysis and/or experiment is an iterative procedure and requires many trials. In this paper, a computationally efficient direct design method, which effectively improves the design procedure, was introduced. The direct design method based on ideal forming theory, which was successfully applied for the design of flat blanks for stamping processes, was extended for the design of non-flat preform for tube hydroforming processes. A preform optimization methodology for non-flat blank solutions was proposed based on the penalty constraint method for the cross-sectional shape and length of a tube. The hybrid membrane/shell method was employed to capture thickness effect while maintaining membrane formulation in the ideal forming theory. Several classes of examples were analyzed to verify the current formulation.